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Welcome back! In the last post, I shared a vivid dream about grizzly bears and giant horses—a striking depiction of the spiritual violence marking the end of an age. Today, I want to take you deeper into another intense vision—one that intertwines grief with the change of spiritual seasons.

On January 15, I woke up in the middle of the night from what felt like another wildly intense, apocalyptic-style dream. It was like a science-fiction thriller. While I love dystopian sci-fi films, let’s just say that watching them is far more enjoyable than dreaming you’re in one.

The dream began with my wife, our four children, and me being held hostage in a large, brown brick building. Imagine an old public school with 1950s-style architecture: wide staircases, echoing hallways, and windows clouded by time. The room where we were held was filled with people—men, women, children, and elders — all stages of life. What became apparent, as I scanned the faces, was that we were all people of color.

Our family discovered a vent in the holding room. Crawling through it, we emerged into a stairwell and began moving stealthily through hallways and floors. In the dream, I had a peculiar skill: I was a master of disguise. At every turn, I’d scout ahead, ensuring the coast was clear, while my family waited. By donning disguises, we managed to slip past most guards unnoticed whenever we could and fought when we couldn’t. Eventually, we found a safe exit.

I left Christine and the kids in a secure spot outside the building and went back in to help the others escape. Retracing my steps to the holding room, I began guiding others along the same path my family had taken. Suddenly, an alarm blared:

"Attention all guards, we have a code blue! Repeat, code blue!"

The sirens wailed, and red lights flashed through the compound. Chaos erupted as the guards scrambled, blocking exits and searching for us. Desperately, I led the group, looking for another way out. That’s when a childhood friend appeared. He whispered urgently that he was there to help me escape, but the guards were everywhere.

To ensure my safety, he suggested something unthinkable: we had to trade faces… You see, all the guards and officials were White men and my friend—a White man—was part of a covert operation aiding captives like us. At first, I resisted, but it became clear that this was the only way. We took our faces off as if they were masks and traded. He pointed me to an exit and ran in the opposite direction to distract the guards. As I reached the door, gunshots echoed behind me. My friend… he was killed, sacrificing his life so I could get out.

Reuniting with my family outside, we began running downhill toward a bus parked by the highway. We weren’t the only ones. Others had escaped and were sprinting alongside us. The sound of bomber planes filled the sky as sirens wailed louder. When I glanced back to ensure we weren’t being followed, I saw something that stopped me cold.

Through a massive window in the building, I saw men and women sitting solemnly, separated by gender: men on the left, women on the right. There were noticeably more women. Among them, I recognized close family members—faces that pierced my heart. They sat in a dimly lit room, unmoving, staring out with expressions I can only describe as resigned. Their faces bore neither peace nor contentment but a strange, hollow acceptance. It was as if they had consented to a painful fate they didn’t want but wouldn’t fight. I wish there were a word for that.

Desperate, I ran back to the building, banging on the window and shouting, “I CAN GET YOU OUT! THEY’RE ABOUT TO BOMB THE BUILDING!” My voice cracked with urgency, but they just stared. One of them finally motioned to me, as if to say, "We’re staying." I gestured for them to text me an explanation. Moments later, my phone buzzed. The message wasn’t words but a beautifully hand-drawn image: a fraction reading "Home over Birthplace," encircled by hearts, swirls, and flowers.

Once they knew I’d received the message, they turned their faces from me and sat waiting. Waiting for the inevitable. My heart shattered. I knew they weren’t coming.

Staggering back toward the bus, I sobbed uncontrollably.. grief consuming me. By the time I reached the bus, I collapsed to my knees, weeping so bitterly that it was my grief that woke me up.

In the dark stillness of my bedroom, I tried to catch my breath. My heart pounded as I lay there, the weight of the dream pressing on me. Then, in the quiet, I heard the Holy Spirit’s gentle whisper:

"That’s what it’ll feel like."

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Reflections on Grief

I’ve spent nearly a year sitting with this dream, allowing its layers to unfold. Two themes stand out vividly: the deep grief of watching loved ones choose death when you know a way out, and the whisper of the Lord: "That’s what it’ll feel like."

In the coming spring, there will be great loss—not just the loss of replaceable items but the loss of ways of being and relating to ourselves. Even in our passionate attempts to save those we love and hold on to ideals we cherish, we will be invited to embrace a new life. Sometimes, that will mean accepting that those we love will choose to stay behind.

I want to be clear: for my family reading this, I don’t believe the dream is about us specifically. When it comes to visions and dreams, The Holy Spirit often uses ingredients from our natural reality to bake spiritual bread to nourish our souls. This dream isn’t about individuals; it’s about the collective grief and transformation awaiting God’s people.

There’s another layer to this dream. The facility being bombed represents structures of division—racial, gendered and systemic—that have no place in the new age God is ushering in. God’s justice is dismantling these old realities. For those with social power, the invitation will be to sacrifice the safety of that privilege for the sake of loving your neighbor as yourself.

At the same time, many of us have learned to relate to ourselves through the lens of oppression, rather than embracing the freedom of our new identity in Christ. Whether it’s the false power of separatism or the false security of code-switching, these strategies will not serve us in the coming age. Those caught in this fog will be lost in the passing of this current age, and there will be deep grief because of it.

Embracing the Cost of Change

The passing of this age will not be without significant loss. As Christ-followers, we often celebrate the idea of growth and new beginnings but fail to count the cost of letting go. Jesus teaches:

"Who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved." (Matthew 9:16-17, NLT)

In this shift, letting go will be costly. Pretending we can carry the old into the new will only make the transformation needlessly cumbersome. For some, it will mean missing the bus altogether.

God is doing a new thing. That doesn’t mean that everything in the old way was bad or worthless; it simply means it’s no longer what He’s doing. We can cling to the past or walk in step with Him now. Either way, God isn’t slowing down. Holding on to what was will only cause us to lag farther behind.

Pay attention and be close to the Father.

God has compassion for our grief but will not sit silently while we make what we should be grieving into a god. As we grieve what we must relinquish, may we also fix our eyes on the new thing He is doing, stepping forward in faith—even when the cost is great.